Last Sunday morning KY3’s Sara Forhetz gave me the first news of the Missouri caucus. She reported on the arrests made in St. Peters and the postponement of their caucus and she gave a recap of the Greene County results. In those, Ron Paul and his supporters scored a clear and decisive victory taking a clear majority of the elected delegates, with Romney a distant second and Santorum a badly beaten third.

I will admit that I laughed out loud because, as I have maintained from the beginning, if you actually have to count the votes, Dr. Paul is a strong candidate, primarily because his long held views on personal liberties, including the repeal of the Patriot Act and NDAA, his anti-occupation stance regarding our military force and his stated objective to end the failed ‘War on Drugs’ are messages that resonate with a large section of Americans.

As for the arrests, I am sorry to say that without knowing a single detail from any of the events that occurred around the state on St. Patrick’s Day, I was not at all surprised. I took a quick glance around the headlines and saw that there were several reports of disruptions coming from all over the state. I was reminded of a workplace conversation a friend, who is a proud Tea Partier, and I, had about his feelings going into the caucus.

He had tuned out. He supports Newt Gingrich and his candidate didn’t even take the time to register. Politics, for him, have now become toxic. The endless parade of debates, of the avalanche of negative ads ( luckily, and due in part to the switch to caucus, Missouri has yet to bear the full brunt of the Super PAC ), the constant, continued refrain of their hard-line minority that seems to determined to pull the party to the right of Hitler. He has had enough of all of it.

It was the second time in a week someone had expressed that opinion to me, the first person telling me he didn’t even want to vote.

The rising level of frustration across the country is palpable.

On Monday, when I began sifting through the articles, a pattern was beginning to emerge across the state that was worth taking note of. In several counties, it seemed a minority of people attempted to hijack the process in order to show support to their candidate of choice, the radically conservative Rick Santorum.

The Lake Sun’s radical inflation of support for Rick Santorum and the editorial tone of the ‘calm’ Camden County caucus were too much to take. Outright lies and the practice of manipulating facts by those working in our media cannot be tolerated any longer. We must hold them accountable.

That began my look into my ‘local’ paper and their editorial staff, the corporate ownership, their overall editorial direction and the effect, if any; this has on the primary process. It didn’t take long before the elephant in the room refused to be ignored and a bigger picture emerges.

GateHouse Media’s business model is to be the preeminent provider of local content and advertising in the small and midsize markets we serve. Our portfolio of products, which includes 431 community publications and more than 405 related websites and six yellow page directories, serves over 299,000 business advertising accounts and reaches approximately 10 million people on a weekly basis. As of September 25, 2011, our core products included:

79 daily newspapers with total paid circulation of approximately 657,000;

257 weekly newspapers (published up to three times per week) with total paid circulation of approximately 493,000 and total free circulation of approximately 694,000;

95 “shoppers” (generally advertising-only publications) with total circulation of approximately 1.5 million;

Over 405 locally focused websites, which extend our franchises onto the internet; and

Six yellow page directories, with a distribution of approximately 490,000, that covers a population of approximately 1.2 million people.

Gatehouse Media specializes in small circulation newspaper ownership and in Missouri; they are big players in the rural news market. Whether it is my own Lake Sun Leader in Camdenton, the Booneville Daily News, the Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune, the Waynesville Daily Guide, or the St. James Leader-Journal, it is the same Gatehouse template.

After learning the Lake Sun decided to spin fact from fiction to favor Santorum, I began looking at some of these Gatehouse Media outlets and their caucus coverage.

This is marginally better than the Rolla Daily News. They didn’t even mention the caucus. Neither did the Booneville Daily News, although to be fair, they did tout a political prayer fest. Not a single word about the caucus was mentioned in the Carthage Press either, touted as Southwest Missouri’s oldest paper.

And the St. James Leader-Journal decided to instead focus on a pity party for its paper’s corporate ownership and the current editor’s family’s role in it. Their website is reflective of a familiar theme of blog voices, conservative and religious. If that is starting to sound familiar to you, rest assured. You aren’t alone. Although I will say this, to the editor. Yes, I am from out of town but thanks for introducing me to St. James’ famous whine!

You will have to join me for a laugh. In the Hannibal Courier-Post they are not talking about the GOP caucus at all, but if you want a good laugh, click here and check out the top news stories. A flip through the pages here and you tell me how anxious YOU are to visit Mark Twain’s home. You will also notice the same parade of conservative ‘opinion’ pieces.

To be fair, the Examiner stands out from the ‘Missouri’ template for Gatehouse, as it appears to reflect a slightly more unique and independent (no pun intended) stance than the cookie cutter pattern. Still, there was no mention of the caucus chaos, begging the question: “If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to report it…?”

What begins to emerge is a slightly different picture than the one presented rural Missouri in outlets controlled by the corporate Gatehouse Media. In fact, when one begins to look closer at the results that came from the St. Louis and Jackson Counties yesterday, it would appear Gatehouse Media is squarely aligned with the minorities who sought to grasp at control of their caucus across the state.,

More to come….please contact via Twitter @AmericanSpring with comments.

My interest in the subject of the caucus came quite by accident and coincided with an exchange with a local journalist. The question, asked of Deanna Wheeler, reporter of the Lake Sun, via Twitter(@DeannaWheeler), was a bit of a philosophical one, but particularly important in today’s climate.

“What happens to a society in which the media is rendered useless by corporate ownership and interests?”

It didn’t take long for Ms. Wheeler, Editor-in-chief Joyce Miller, and the Lake Sun to serve up a homespun answer.

I admit, I could care less about the Republican race for the nomination. As you can see from my other pieces here, I firmly believe that party is irrelevant. I was even under the belief that Santorum was going to be in Osage Beach Saturday morning instead of Friday night. Still, knowing there would be a number of local tea party members for whom Santorum might be attractive, I was curious to see what kind of turnout he managed in this time of poisonous rhetoric and record low participation. When I read Ms. Wheeler’s account that the number of supporters was around two hundred people, I was satisfied that it was an accurate reporting of the support in our area for the controversial,ultra-conservative, former lobbiest and politican, Rick Santorum. Given the fact that she was quoting children for a reaction in her report only reinforced the notion that it was a modest turn-out.

The surprise came a couple of days later when the results of the Camden County caucus were announced in the Lake Sun by Editor Joyce Miller. Under her pen, the support for Santorum swelled to six hundred people. This accompanied a piece about the Camden County caucus which was described as calm while registering their support for Santorum through the delegate selection process. Special emphasis was put on the orderly nature of the caucus, in response to reports from several Missouri counties whose caucus process was anything but.

While the blatant misrepresentation of support in the Lake Sun came as a surprise, it seems to only be one peculiar piece to a much larger picture. When one begins to look at the events of the Missouri caucuses conducted last weekend across this state, a troubling picture begins to emerge that raises serious questions about the media across this state, and the role of journalism today.

A funny thing happened on the way to the nomination in Missouri, but it’s likely you missed it.

This weekend I will be doing a series on the strange goings on in this caucus process. I hope you’ll join me. I’m going to go fret that Kansas won now. Peace.

Why is the difference in attendance, as first reported here by Deanna Wheeler of Gatehouse Media’s Lake Sun and the Editor’s accounting of the same event so dramatically different? It wouldn’t be the first time the corporation has been linked to politicians. After all, John Edwards (yes that’s right, HIM) ran for office while owning part of Gatehouse.

Inflating support for a candidate is a direct attempt to sway momentum for said candidate and is an absolute violation of the role of the ‘free’ press in our republic.

Gatehouse owns most small town papers in Missouri. Also in Illinois and Massachusetts.

What if we are ALL being given inflated support numbers?

What they didn’t say was that there was widespread chaos concerning the GOP caucus across the state, at a time when our political rhetoric is at its most vile and most of the electorate is completely turned off by the sick parody of the current primary. The politicians,Super PACS, millionaires, billionaires and the corporations who fund them have turned this into a single party state. Government by the highest bidder.

Not that you would know it. After all, according to the Gatehouse version, all is peaceful and calm here. We are marching along in step.

When asked for clarification, Deanna Wheeler replied, “There wasn’t an official head count but I would say about 300 people, maybe 400. The hall was about 3/4ths full.”

200,300,400,600…..Hell, how about a thousand. It only matters if you’re paying attention.